Re: BANANAFISH digest 223
Brendan McKennedy (suburbantourist@hotmail.com)
Fri, 30 Jan 1998 21:41:34 -0800 (PST)
I've only read a couple translated novels but I
>don't like the idea at all. I always feel like I'm not getting the real
>deal. Like I must be missing out on all the little beautiful languagey
>details that can only be read in the language it was written in
originally.
>Imagine telling someone who doesn't speak english to read a translation
of
>Catcher in the Rye. It would worry me to death. I know the "plot" would
be
>the same but would it be the same book? I don't know. I doubt it.
>Anyway, that bothers me and I wonder if I'm the only one...
>
I've thought about a translation of Catcher as well, and have had many
of the same feelings. Salinger's exact words are just about half the
novel.
I share your feeling of loss in reading translated literature,
particularly in Camus or Sartre, but they may have been inaccessible in
French as well, for all I know. But PLEASE don't let that keep you from
reading translated novels; you'll miss so much, seriously. I haven't
read Garcia Marquez's aforementioned masterpiece (yet, I hope), but I
have read translations of "Like Water for Chocolate" and "Kiss of the
Spiderwoman", and they are both beautiful, moving, and entirely unique
works, particularly the latter. Don't forget, English is a particularly
literary and beautiful language itself, if used with skill.
Brendan
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